2006 August | Mark Evans

My [NYT] Times My Way

August 31st, 2006 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, Media

Among North American newspapers, the New York Times has been on the leading-edge when it comes to the Web. I was invited to try the new My Times service (it's in beta), which lets you personalize a news “portal” with NYT content, external news sources and blogs. My initial impression is it's ”good, quite good” because it combines the NYT's first-rate content (news, politics, sports, technology, arts, science) with high-quality external content such as CNet, BusinessWeek, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. You can even search for other content, which - much to my surprise - let me add my blog to My Times. To be honest, I'm not a big portal person even though I have My Yahoo and Google configured as start pages. That said, My Times is impressive enough to make me change my ways. My Times is a good example of how newspapers need to be pro-active and forward-thinking if they want to remain viable and vital - even an “institution” such as the NYT is not immune. See my post from yesterday for more thoughts on how newspapers need to embrace/adopt the Web.
Update: Richard McManus has an extensive post on the soon-to-be launched Times Reader service that's a must-read for anyone interested in the service.

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AOL's Shutting Down TotalTalk

August 31st, 2006 | 2 Comments | Posted in VOIP Services, Competition

Just in time for the VON conference in Boston (which has shifted its focus to video from voice), AOL's foray into the VoIP market is coming to an abrupt close in North America. According to Aswath, TotalTalk will be “terminated” on or about Nov. 30 in the U.S. In Canada, an AOL Canada spokesperson said the service will be terminated in October due to a “pretty challenging and competitive market”. Andy Abramson believes that rather than look at AOL's decision as a failure, it's a recognition by the company it will do better in voice through its its AIM PhoneLine service. Andy makes a good point because the “traditional” VoIP market (isn't that a strange phrase) is crowded with Vonage, 8×8, SunRocket the cablecos and even carriers. For AOL, Yahoo, MSN and Google, it makes much more sense to go the IM route than go head to head with the large VoIP service providers.
Update: According to a comment, TotalTalk subscribers in Canada have been sent letters that the service will be shut down on or about Oct. 22.

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Wireless Camping Recap

August 31st, 2006 | 1 Comment | Posted in Blog Services, Main Page, Wireless

Now that I've recovered from my recent camping “experience” at Sandbanks Provincial Park, here's wireless re-cap. For access, I used Bell Canada's Passport service (based on a Kyocera card), which was pretty good - certainly not blazing fast but it offered decent connectivity over Bell's 1xEV-DO network. I also blogged on a Blackberry 7250, which was fine although doing it by e-mail to Blogware didn't provide any way to use features such as hyperlinks or respond to comments. To be read blogs, I used Virtual Reach's Newsclip service, which is a sweet, little application. It's fast and easy to set up using a desktop interface. If you have a wireless device, and interested in reading blogs on the go, Newsclip is worth checking out.

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Another Journo Flies the Coop

August 31st, 2006 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, Web 2.0

The number of journalists spreading their wings to run their own Web start-ups continues to expand with news that SiliconBeat's Matt Marshall is leaving to start VentureBeat, which will focus on private companies and their investors. Matt joins journalists such as Om Malik, who have made the jump after enjoying considerable blogging success. Maybe this is another sign blogging can become a legitimate business opportunity for some people. Or perhaps it's a sign of renewed (ir)rational exurberance in Silicon Valley that has given folks the entrepreneurial bug again - a phenomena that popped up during the dot-com boom as well.

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Better Newspaper Web Sites

August 30th, 2006 | 2 Comments | Posted in Main Page, Media

As an “ink-stained [newspaper] wretch” and Internet disciple, I'm fascinated by the struggles many newspapers are having embracing/adopting the Web. There are business issues (subscriptions vs. free content), access challenges (everything available vs. select content), advertising (cannibalize the lucrative classified business vs. let Craigslist eat your lunch) and content creation (blogs? podcasts? videocasts?). The Biving Report (hat tip to Jeff Jarvis) offers up nine ways that newspapers can improve their Web sites. Most of them are fairly straightforward: remove registration requirements, improve graphics/design and use RSS. Others are a little more progressive: partnering with local bloggers, the use of tags, and working with “social” Web services such as del.icio.us and Digg. It is curious to see newspapers still grappling with the Web a decade after Netscape helped bring the mainstream online. Then again, the music industry is still trying to figure out how to embrace the digital world. Personally, newspapers have ~~little~~ no choice but to go high or go home as far as the Web goes. With more people getting their news online, newspapers need to experiment and take chances to remain viable and vibrant. Some of these experiments will fail, while some of them will be successful. In an ideal world, newspapers will be able to offer physical and digital (online, wireless) products that meet the needs of a variety of readers AND advertisers.
Update: TechDirt has an interesting post today looking at the Web and newspapers - with a focus on a reporter in Missouri and a discussion about whether the newspaper Web site should provide links to external sites. (Ultimately, they decided not to do it)

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Rant o' the Day: Bluetooth Earpieces

August 30th, 2006 | 5 Comments | Posted in Uncategorized, Wireless

Here's the deal: I'm a quasi-geek at heart but I'm not a fan of Bluetooth earpieces. Over the past couple of days, I've seen a couple guys walking around with them. While I'm sure they're convenient and work well, they do not look cool at all. In fact, they say “loser” (gosh, that's harsh, isn't it?). I mean, does it really take that much work to reach for your wireless phone as opposed to using a Bluetooth earpiece? If you're driving, I guess you could justify it, although driving while talking on your phone is bad, bad, bad - particularly those SUV-driving-we-rule-the-road types. Anyway, I feel much better now. Carry on…….

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Much Ado About Schmidt?

August 30th, 2006 | 1 Comment | Posted in Google, Main Page, Uncategorized

So Google CEO Eric Schmidt has joined Apple's board of directors. Count on the blogosphere to put two and two together to five…or six or seven. Does this portend an Apple-Google mega-merger? Will Google provide iTunes with even more momentum to sell millions of those white earphones…er, I mean iPods? People have to remember Silicon Valley is an incestuous, tightly-woven spider's web where everyone knows everyone else. Speculate all you want about what Schmidt's appointment could man but don't let your imaginations get too carried away. What I can tell you is Apple has an intriguingly divergent board - ranging from environmentalist/ex-U.S. VP Al Gore to J. Crew CEO Millard Drexler to Mr. Jobs.

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Hey, I'm #10!

August 29th, 2006 | 4 Comments | Posted in Main Page, VOIP Services, Competition

Well, here's a pleasant late-summer surprise: I'm one of 30 people named to Garrett Smith's list of VOIP bloggers - joining pals such as Om Malik, Alec Saunders and Andy Abramson (aka #1). While flattered, I'm secretly hoping to make another VoIP list this year (video) by posting on YouTube's every move…:) Thanks for the compliment, Garrett.

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Where are Canadian Corporate Blogs?

August 29th, 2006 | 13 Comments | Posted in Main Page, Web 2.0

I've almost finished reading Naked Conversations, which is part of my summer reading series (The Long Tail, The Golden Spruce). Although I share Robert ScobleÂ and Shel Israel's ardent enthusiasm for blogging, Naked Conversations comes across as almost too evangelistic. TheyÂ believe blogs are/will be an essential marketing/communications tool that few companies should be without. They cite examples such as Kyrptonite, which was savaged a couple of years ago in the blogosphere when someone discovered you could open one of the company's locks with a Bic pen. Kryptonite didn't have a blog so it had no way to fight back other than using traditional PR tools. It lost the battle and ended up paying $10-million to compensate customers. Scoble and Israel's belief in blogs got me thinking about the Canadian corporate landscape and who's blogging. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think there is a large Canadian company that has a blog. Nortel, for example, would be a good candidate but the only blog dedicated to the company is one I write. Another good candidate would be Canadian Tire, one of Canada's largest retailers and one that's part of the country's cultural fabric. A corporate blog strikes me as a great way for Canadian Tire to talk about issues such as new products, store re-designs and new internal developments. So why are so many Canadian companies so blog-free? I'm not exactly sure other than Canadians, by nature, tend to be conservative. This includes the Internet where we lag behind the U.S. in e-commerce and online advertising even though we have the second highest broadband penetration in the world.
Update: Someone who left a comment suggested other potential corporate blog candidates include Tim Horton's, WestJet, Loblaws and the banks.

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Next Up: Google Browser?

August 28th, 2006 | 2 Comments | Posted in Browsers, Browsers/Firefox, Google, Main Page

Sorry, one more G-Thought. Now that Google Apps is out in the wild, the inevitable question is when Google will launch a browser. I mean, it can't hide behind Firefox forever, right?

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